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Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Those of you who have been following me this past year have seen the transformation of our retirement fixer upper. My husband and I have always been DIYers and we seem to always have a project that we are working on. Since the end of 2016 is fast approaching, I have been doing a little reminiscing about some of my favorite projects.We lived for 10 years in this house and in those 10 years, we did a lot of DIYing.

Let me show you some highlights of a few of our projects:My husband converted a kitchen table into a coffee table. You can read about it here. This table was used several years in our son's college house. It is now being used as a play table for our grands.

2012 was a busy year. We transformed the backyard of our previous home, My husband built the outdoor kitchen. You can see the complete backyard transformation here and here.

We had one storage room in our basement that was unfinished so guess what he did? He finished it into a very organized storage/work room. Read here.

This next project was one of my husband's most creative: Changing the winter firepit into a summer umbrella table. You can read the entire story here. We brought that table with us when we moved and you can see it at the top of this page.

He made a table with matching footstools for our porch from scrap lumber. Click here and here to see the entire project.

The next project was in the room that I miss the most. The home theatre. You can see the projects here.

All this was in 2012! WHEW! Now on to 2013

He built a knock off Pottery Barn table for our basement. Click here and here to see the project.

He installed a craftsman style ceiling on our upper deck. I stained and sealed all of the wood and that was a job! Click here to see how we did it.

Our oldest son and daughter in law moved to a new house and he custom made bookshelves and a coffee table for them. click here

This next project was one of my favorites. Read here how I converted a piece of junk from Goodwill into a farmhouse style bench.

Well after all this, we retired and decided to move closer to our sons and grands. It was hard leaving the home that we worked on so hard. There were more projects we had planned to do if we had stayed but there were plenty of new projects waiting for us at our fixer upper. While we were working on renovating our new to us house, my husband also helped my sons with some projects. I will report on those later.

While I am posting this, I hear my husband outside hammering on something. I wonder what he is doing now? Details coming.

Monday, December 19, 2016

When we moved to Alabama, we had a garage sale and I sold a lot of my Christmas decorations, including pillows that I used on the porch of our previous house. This was a good excuse to buy new ones. One day while browsing through Pinterest, I found this pin. It is from a decorating blog that I have been following for several years, One Sutton Place . I love the look of buffalo check and when I saw this, I knew I had to try and duplicate the look.

I looked everywhere for ready made pillows and even fabric but could not find the color or pattern that I wanted. I even looked in the men's department at Walmart for some flannel shirts. One day while in Hobby Lobby I spotted the perfect buffalo check and a light went off in my brain. It was a table runner and it made perfect sense because it was already lined. I simply cut it into three sections.

Stuffed each section with fiberfill.

Then I whip stitched the ends.

Now I have buffalo check pillows.

I think I have decided on a new project for spring. I'll just have to find a new table runner.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Those of you who have been following me since our move to Alabama, know that we have been working on this fixer upper for over a year. Last December, my husband and I felt like we completely missed Christmas because we were living in 2 little rooms in the upstairs of this house. The blue tarp you see in the picture below encased the stairway to our living quarters for four long months. While living upstairs, we painted and sanded the popcorn ceiling while the main floor and basement were completely gutted. We were living in a big MESS. Still to this day, I don't know how we survived, but we did! The remodel I could deal with, but living in it at the same time was very difficult.

Now that the house is done except for a few little things, we finally get to celebrate Christmas in Alabama!

I don't mind walking in the front door anymore.

Come on in.

No more blue tarp.

I love how you can see the lake in the background. We had to get a much smaller tree this year because we don't have the high ceilings in this house.

The picture below was taken before the railing to the basement was installed.

Of course you can't tell by the picture but this tree rotates 360. I've had this rotating stand for a few years and like how you can see all of the decorations because there is no front or back.

Today I want to share with you a DIY project that a friend has done in her home using reclaimed palletwood. Her home was already lovely but she recently added a creative touch to her dining room and family room.

The first thing she did was remove the chair railing and crown molding from the wall. Do you see that beautiful wood stacked on the floor? She did not have to do a thing to it because it was already naturally weathered. Boy did she get lucky on this find!

You can already see how beautiful it is on the wall.

I am in love with that "house jewelry". I refer to lighting fixtures as house jewelry. Click here

to read about when we added the jewelry to our fixer upper.

Isn't this beautiful!

She made the painted sign on the wall too.

Now on to the family room.

After adding the palletwood, she adjusted the shelves and mounted the TV.

What a difference!

This gives the bookcase such an updated look. She and her husband are quite the DIYers.

I will be featuring some other "Homes of the Shoals" Christmas decorating soon so ya'll come back now ya hear!